Monday, February 22, 2010

It's time for our fellow bracketologists to get on board the UConn bandwagon. It's filling up fast. (And we're driving.) Thanks to Kemba Walker's 21 points and Stanley Robinson's 15 points and 13 rebounds - and a well-timed technical by Jim Calhoun less than a minute into the game - the surging Huskies picked up their second win over a Top 10 team in the last seven days, beating 7th-ranked West Virginia 73-62 Monday night at the XL Center. The win moved UConn to 7-8 in the Big East, it gave them a third Top 25 RPI win, and most importantly, it put them in great shape to run the table in their quest for an at-large bid. The Huskies host Louisville on Saturday and then play two huge road games at Notre Dame and at South Florida next week. Despite their season-long road woes, it's hard not to like their chances to win out with the way they're playing right now, especially with Walker stepping up and taking the scoring load off of Robinson and Jerome Dyson. He's averaging 22 points and 5.6 rebounds per game over UConn's current three-game win streak. For West Virginia, the loss doesn't hurt too much since it came on the road, and since the Mountaineers now return home for two straight games. If they just win against Cincinnati in Morgantown on Saturday, they'll likely hang on to their spot on the 3 line next week.

After saying on ESPN this weekend that UConn needed "four more wins" to get a bid, Joe Lunardi's Last Four In on the Monday night SportsCenter had the Huskies IN. We had that, too, Joe - 24 hours earlier.

Of note: Kansas blew out Oklahoma at home (Xavier Henry scored a game-high 23 for the Jayhawks); Morgan State won at MD-Eastern Shore.

i still think UConn will end up dropping a game. Their problem all year has been consistency. They should be slight favorites against Louisville, both road games against ND and USF are toss-ups.

How do you like their chances of a bid at 9-9 assuming they win their first tourney game and lose to Cuse/Nova in the quarterfinals? I think they'd have a pretty good shot with the bubble being pretty soft and a strong SOS.

A 9-9 finish and one Big East tourney win would put the Huskies squarely on the bubble going into Selection Sunday. As long as there aren't a ton of bid-stealers during Championship Week, though, we'd still like their chances to get a bid.

lunardi does his bracketology based on if the bracket were released right then and there. so, yes, lunardi was a moron for keeping uconn in his bracket for weeks when they were busy losing games and getting destroyed. if uconn goes 9-9, they are getting in even if they lose 1st round in the BET. has a team ever had 3 top 10 wins and not made it? also, ND is not a toss-up. ND is not a very good team and is even worse without its best player.

Whats the best seed Uconn could get at this point? Lets say they win out in the regular season and make it to the BE Championship? That would give them a record of 23-12 or 24-11 (if they win out). Id say they could get all the way down to a 5 seed with that record. More realistically they will lose in the quarters and have a 20-12 record and get a 10 seed.

Connecticut (if they win out) would be very similar to Gerry McNamara's last Syracuse team that was on the bubble and won the BE tourney. That Syracuse team had the #1 SOS (having played 1 seeded UConn and Nova 5 total times that year). They ended up a 5 seed and lost to #12 Texas A&M in the first round when McNamara was hurt.

We ripped Lunardi about UConn because he's been awful in his assessment of the Huskies all year. For example, he had them in as a 6 seed on Jan. 18 after they had lost three in a row and had no quality wins on their resume whatsoever. For every loss the Huskies had in January, he just knocked them down a seed line, which was ridiculous at that point in the season. He finally took UConn out of his bracket two weeks too late, and now, when they are back on the bubble, he's been all sorts of wishy-washy about their status. On ESPN over the weekend, he said they needed four more wins to get a bid, and now after beating WVU (that's one win, not four) he makes headlines on ESPN.com (and gets Scott Van Pelt all excited..."Joey Brackets!!") for having the Huskies "back in."

We haven't flip-flopped on the Huskies at all. We had them out when they should have been out early in the year, and this week we projected them to make the field before the WVU win. Lunari's been a day late and a dollar short on UConn all year; we've been pretty spot on.

Even without Harangody, Notre Dame took Louisville to overtime and would have won if the referees had called Samardo Samuels for dragging his pivot foot before the 4 point play. Connecticut will have a tough game in South Bend. All 3 remaining games for UConn are tough. Nobody will hand the Huskies 3 wins.

The ND game is definitely the most dangerous game the Huskies have left. The Irish would no doubt love to ruin UConn's comeback run and if they get Harangody back for that game, they'll get a big emotional lift.

Gary Williams should not be too cocky. If the Terrapins don't bring their A game, they could get upset in the first round. Maryland is not good enough to overlook opponents. Jim Calhoun is better at intimination the referres than Gary.

that was me who first pointed out the uconn 8/9 potential. i'd go so far as to say that that is where uconn is going to get slotted. a 2nd round match-up with uconn and kansas, duke or purdue would be like when unlv got stuck with georgetown and its twin towers in 1991.

You were wondering why SDSU is in the brackets? I'm a UNM fan, but I can tell you that they're peaking at the right time ...they might be the best in the MWC right now; they're easily better than UNLV, and I wouldn't be surprised if they beat BYU tonight on the road. The MWC deserves 4 bids.

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